J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘Hear hear.’

‘Cease those remarks. All of you are to stay where you are until instructed to do otherwise. And on no account is anyone to re-enter the school. That is all. Except that a full investigation is to be carried out. As to the cause of the fire. I want any of you with any information to come to me and disclose such.’

‘Kildare do you think someone started the fire deliberately.’

‘I’m sure I don’t know Kelly.’

‘Gosh that would be really not nice.’

‘No Kelly it would not be nice at all if someone did set the school alight.’

‘Someone must have done it.’

‘Kelly who is that girl who made my bed.’

‘O she is called Slut. Out of her hearing of course. The Presidium members take turns with her on a mattress they have behind the water tank in the attic. She’s quite kindly you know. She was put up the pole by a big landowner. And was sent to do penance in a convent after she had a baby. The Presidium are always snatching feels of her. And pushing her up the ladder into the attic. She sometimes slaps them. But mostly she giggles. Goodness that’s where the fire is. Right where the Presidium meets. Was that where they were holding your inquisition, Kildare.’

‘O no, we held that quietly in the library.’

A long file of boys moving off. Circling now around the school, heading on the gravel path, for the back kitchen. Sound of a sputtering motor vehicle. Must be the school’s personal fire engine. Lights fading and then brightening as the beams cut through the foggy darkness out across the park land. Its ancient wheels pulling to a stop at the front steps. Part of it painted red. Three men kitted out in long rubber coats unwinding a hose. Running up the wide grey entrance of the school. One carrying an axe. A moment later all coming back out again to say the hose won’t reach. The engine pumping water. Pointing the hose nozzle at the north wing. Driblets coming out as rain begins to fall. A cheer rising from all the assembled pyjama clad sneezing and shivering boys. Seems appropriate at this juncture that one should now just slowly slip away. And ask this stingy Kelly for some of his fudge.

‘Where are you going Kildare.’

‘To relieve myself Kelly. And might I ask you to have a piece of fudge.’

‘Certainly you may. But only a little piece.’

‘Let me have the box so I may choose something suitably small.’

‘Hey where are you going Kildare with my box.’

‘I’ll bring it back. In just a moment. Don’t panic’.

Darcy Dancer crossing over the soft mossy lawn. And further out into the wide wide darkness. Look back at the lines of assembled heads. The fire’s flames licking from the roof top up into the falling rain. Shouts and arguments as staff members assisted by older boys continue to lug out paintings and furniture. Mr Arland’s kind friend in a pair of boots and covered sensibly in a sou’wester. Directing the traffic of objets d’art. Had I hidden under the bed till all were gone from the dormitory, they might think I had perished in the flames. Then in my own living flesh I’d be off now in the world and be entirely somebody else. Except there would have to be a black charred skeleton left. If bones don’t burn. With perhaps only Mr Arland to mourn my departure. And maybe Miss von B too. And Uncle Willie. And now as I vault this stud rail fence. Clutch niggardly Kelly’s box of chocolate fudge tightly. That woman’s face. Staring at me making my bed and serving the soup. Seen her before. Down in the kitchens of Andromeda Park. She was a girl then. During my mother’s life. When the household’s senior members had their own servants to serve them under the big vaulted ceiling of the staff dining room. Closed up now all these years. Remember her on the stairs. And heaving big platters to table. When I sat with Crooks, Norah, Sheila and Kitty. She had then big mounds of glossy black hair. Rosy cheeks and blue eyes. Face all pale and thin now. Her hair all dull and greasy. Climb over this stone wall. The rain coming down in buckets. If it puts out the fire, it will also fatally warp all the school’s antiques. Uncle Willie said to me once. That if ever I should come upon hard times that I should go to him. And instead here I am. On this lake shore. Tripping over the stones. Hear the long beep of a plover. Go around till I can cut again back across fields. O god now I’m trodding in bottoms. Squelch of water. Coming up the sides of my shoes. Feet already wet. Must reach dry land. Over this ditch. Got to jump. Sexton said there may be a little water on top but it can be six feet deep in mud underneath. What’s that. A massive shadow. Moving. Big white curly head. Two horns nicely curving down. On a Hereford bull. Dear God. Although I don’t believe in you, here is an opportunity for you to prove to me you exist. If you will just not let that beast come after me, trapped as I am here on all fours on the edge of this bank.

Darcy Dancer holding his breath. The bull slowly turning to sniff in the shadows. And the welcome sound. Of ripping grass again. The behemoth grazing. And another shadow seems like a heifer nudging beside him. Much better that he jumps on her than he wastes time chasing me. Dead tree leaves thank god, underfoot. Feels like dry land. Bat flitting overhead. A cottage. Just get closer. Creeping up this mound of grass. The white washed wall around this dim lighted window. Peer inside. A table, dresser full of dishes. A pail. May be full of milk. To wash down Kelly’s rather excellent chocolate fudge I borrowed. And chew now at this very moment so gratefully. Like the cottage out in the bog lands. With the bog woman and blind bog man. Dog sleeping in front of the fire. Good lord. There they are. The inhabitants. Kneeling praying. A statue candle lit with its heart burning red. And the dog. Its head rising. Getting up to bark and run. Right at this window. If they catch me a Protestant sneaking around their yard. But they won’t now that I’m running. To get at least five miles away. Briars tearing my jacket. Get through this hedge. Charge up this hill. Right to the top. Feel warm now. The mist shifting. Making faint shadows of trees below. And beyond. Way back there. The red glow in the sky. So many young chaps’ future education going up in smoke. And a handy beacon to keep me straight in my direction. Which is I pray, truly westerly. And just hope I don’t come to a bog. And sink. Down deep in brown blackness.

Be found

Centuries later

Petrified

Darcy Dancer stretching out his stiff limbs. This third damp morning. And the sound of clapping wings. Two pigeons speeding out of the branches over my head and disappearing off into the faint lighted fog. Aching now after all the endless hedges, climbing stuck gates, sliding down ditches and skirting bogs with the snipe in a whirr of wings shooting up in the dark. During these chill and slowly starving past two days. To always and always at all costs keep hunching forward.

Rub my eyes. Hands immovable with cold. Massage my joints. The dried scabs of blood all over my scratches. Mud down the side of my face. Where I’ve used the ground as a pillow. Near a ditch and gurgling water. Under the red berries of a hawthorn tree. And Kelly’s fudge box abandoned there in the tall grass and its contents deposited not unsweetly in one’s belly.

Get up. Slowly take a feel to see if my ears are still on. The shape of my back in the pile of the hay. Searched for dark hours to find cocks in a field. To make sure that a farmer wouldn’t have beasts loose there to come sniffling and trampling me in the night. Kept my side and back warm. Beads of sweat coming off my sweater. Right over my heart. Steam rising out the top of that cock of hay. Be somewhere rotting within. Just as one wishes the fog would lift, it’s lifting. The sky covered by purple cloud all the way to the horizon. A bright golden crack opening there full of the sun. My blue leather diary still in my jacket pocket. Written nothing in it over all these horrendous days. Curled now with damp and ink stains running blotting between the pages. Suppose if I had a pencil. I’d write rudely in the appropriate empty space. O shit. Being as I am presently suffering from torpor of the bowel. And need I think to refer to Mr Arland’s homoeopathy book for a suitable remedy.